The Many Cafés of John Welch

A new publication from John Welch’s The Many Press has just appeared. Cafés by Abdulkareem Kasid is the first extensive publication of this Iraqi poet whose work is well-known in the Arab world. The café as a site of sociability and meeting place for writers features prominently in literary life in Iraq and the sequence of lyric pieces here gives an insight into a world of lightness underpinned by a depth of focus which makes one want to read them over and over again.

Copies of this delightful chapbook can be obtained from The Many Press, 15 Norcott Road, London N16 7BJ priced at £3.50 post free.

A new collection of John Welch’s own poetry has also appeared from Shearsman. Its Halting Measure covers a range of themes but there is a constant preoccupation with the problems and ambiguities surrounding the making of poems, “our words like scented gardens for the blind.”

Jeremy Hilton will be reviewing this fine new collection in Tears in the Fence.